Clybourne Park is a significant play. It won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Drama and, in 2012, was awarded the Tony Award for best Broadway drama. A cursory glance over the schedules for regional theater in the past two years suggests that it is the most widely produced play in the country. The Guthrie has made a major investment in the play, from hiring a top notch production team and cast to building an enormous, complex set, and booking the play for a lengthy run of eight weeks. On the night I attended, most of the apparently full house (around 700) at the McGuire Proscenium Stage—almost all of whom were, like me, white—loved the play. Continue Reading →

The Garifuna Collective
Thurs., Jun 20, 7:30 pm • Cedar Cultural Center, 416 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls., 612-338-2674 or www.thecedar.org • The Garifuna Collective features an exciting roster of the top musicians in the Garifuna music scene of Central America and they are renowned for their work with the late Andy Palacio on the groundbreaking album Wátina, which Amazon.com selected as “The Greatest World Music Album of All Time.”

Questlove and D’Angelo
Sun., June 23, 7 pm • First Avenue & 7th St. Entry, 701 N. 1st Ave., Mpls., 612-338-8388 or http://first-avenue.com • Questlove and D’Angelo team up for their two-man show, Brothers in Arms which has been earning rave reviews since they teamed up for D’Angelo’s first U.S. concert in 12 years last summer. Continue Reading →

Now through Feb. 17
History Theater
30 East 10th St., St. Paul
651-292-4323 or www.historytheatre.com
Civil rights and labor activist Nellie Stone Johnson was a Minnesota hero. Her feisty spirit and drive to succeed made her a political force to be reckoned with on issues of social justice, labor rights, and equality. Renowned playwright Kim Hines tells the remarkable story of a young African American woman who moved from a farm in northern Minnesota to Minneapolis to attend the U of M.

Nashville, Tennessee is more known for its country music roots, but the city also has strong roots in the Civil Rights Movement, says civil rights activist Ernest “Rip” Patton, Jr. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas’ Tolerance Minnesota sponsored Patton’s October 11-12 visit, where he met with local high school students as well as college students at St. Cloud State University. Patton always wanted to be in music, and his initial goals included teaching music in school. His teaching plans were put on hiatus after he became involved in the Nashville movement in 1961 that led to the eventual integration of the city’s downtown lunch counters. He was featured in Freedom Riders, a PBS documentary based on the book of the same name. Continue Reading →

Lou Bellamy brilliantly directs James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner at Guthrie Theater for a Penumbra Theatre Company/Guthrie Theater regional premiere. Bellamy, of course, is best known for taking scripts through their paces in St. Paul on Penumbra’s home ground at the Halle Q. Browne Community Center. An ace with ensemble casts, Bellamy has shown his hand to admirable effect with memorable Penumbra productions of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Seven Guitars and Two Trains Running. Here, Bellamy tackles an unwieldy script to winning effect. Continue Reading →